Tuesday, 28 April 2015

TweetTwo days ago,
Cameron made the extraordinary claim
that Scottish nationalists “don’t want
the country to succeed”.Obviously,
he wasn’t talking about Scotland when he used the words “the country”, for it would be a very strange nationalist party
that didn’t want its own country to succeed.But if he was instead talking about the UK, it would still be a very
strange form of nationalism which wanted the ‘country’ of which the Scots are
still a part to do other than succeed.And
even if he was referring to the UK minus Scotland, there is still no evidence
that the SNP actually want the country to ‘fail’.Indeed, much of what Nicola Sturgeon has said
throughout the election campaign seems to be saying quite the opposite.

If Scotland is
to remain a part of the UK, it is very much in the interest of the Scots that
the UK should be an economic success.And if Scotland were to become independent, it is very much in the
interest of the Scots that their largest trading partner should be an economic
success.Both of those things must
surely be as obvious to Cameron as they are to me.

It’s easy to dismiss
Cameron’s statement as electioneering nonsense, but I think that it tells us
something very important about the unionist psyche, and underlines why the
unionists will ultimately be defeated.It tells us that he cannot really conceive of anyone pushing for a second referendum on independence for
Scotland other than as a reaction to failure.He doesn’t understand – can’t begin to understand, apparently – that the movement for Scottish independence exists regardless of the economic arguments, let alone that the certainty of economic success would only boost the nationalist cause.

Particularly telling is his apparent failure to grasp that economic failure helps the ‘no’
camp more than the ‘yes’ camp. Fear of economic failure was, after
all, the basis of much of the ‘no’ argument during the referendum.How to achieve economic success is an issue
on which there is clearly a significant gulf between him and the SNP; but the
goal of achieving it is a shared aspiration.

Panicking
politicians don’t look for reasoned debate about alternative approaches to
achieving the same goal; they only look for ways of scaring people into voting
the ‘right’ way.This time, though, it doesn’t seem to be
working.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I think 'scaring people' is working. In Scotland the SNP seems on course to do rather well. This is all to the benefit of those living in England and Wales and the Conservative party in particular. Moreover, I suspect the SNP knows another referendum isn't possible for another generation. And this too is arguably good for everybody.

Perhaps Plaid should try to scare a few more people. It might get a few more votes.

"If Scotland is to remain a part of the UK, it is very much in the interest of the Scots that the UK should be an economic success. And if Scotland were to become independent, it is very much in the interest of the Scots that their largest trading partner should be an economic success. Both of those things must surely be as obvious to Cameron as they are to me."

Absolutely. A key point. And the corollary if is also true: it would also be in the interest of rUK that an independent Scotland be an economic success.